HR 875 Update: The Biotech Companies are Destroying Traditional Farming (Just Not in this Bill)

The following note is typical of the calls and e-mails Organic Consumers Association has been receiving this week:

"Do you know anything about HR 875, a 'food safety' bill that was written by Monsanto, Cargill and ADM? I've heard a few individual activists scream about this as the death of farmers markets, CSAs and local organic food, yet have seen no alerts from any of the reliable groups, including OCA. Any idea what's up with this?"

HR 875 is a food safety bill that, as it is currently drafted, could be applied to all farms, including certified organic and farm-to-consumer operations. The bill would require farms to have a food safety plan, allow their records to be inspected, and comply with food safety regulations.

For the record, Organic Consumers Association does have an alert on HR875. As OCA points out in our Action Alert, we cannot support a "food safety" bill unless it provides protection or exemptions for organic and farm-to-consumer producers and cracks down on the real corporate criminals who are tampering with and polluting our nation's food supply.

Having said that, OCA supports aspects of HR875 that call for mandatory recalls of tainted food, increased scrutiny of large slaughterhouses and food manufacturers, and hefty fines against companies that send poisonous food to market. The now discredited ultra-libertarian notion that companies or the "market" will regulate themselves is not only ludicrous, but dangerous, whether we are talking about the banking system or the food and farming sector.

When researching this issue, Organic Consumers Association turned to trusted sources within the organic farming community. We suggest the following resource for further reading:

Of course, Monsanto and large corporate agribusiness are out to destroy traditional farming. Unfortunately, while many people have been distracted by HR 875, the biotech companies have been hard at work pushing their agenda (see below). We need to keep working together to work towards positive alternatives, such as organic agriculture and the green economy.

A ban on rBGH-free labeling from Monsanto's successor Eli LillyA bill that is working its way through the Kansas legislature would prevent farmers from labeling any dairy products sold in Kansas as being "free" of genetically modified bovine growth hormone (rbST or rBGH). Farmers could say that the product comes from cows that haven't received injections of the artificial bovine growth hormone, which stimulates milk production (and increases the use of antibiotics and the presence of pus in milk). However, such products would also be forced to include disclaimers saying that the federal government has found no significant difference between milk from cows injected with rbST and milk from those that have not received the hormone. While there is an exemption for certified organic milk, OCA opposes this law. It has Monsanto's fingerprints all over it. The revolving door that brought Monsanto executives through the FDA is the reason the federal government took the position that there's no difference between milk produced with or without rbST. Monsanto sold rbST to Eli Lilly in August 2008, but the pro-rbST strategy hasn't changed much.

Epitopix's E. coli vaccineA vaccine for E. coli has been conditionally approved by the USDA. Now the USDA can force this new animal drug on all beef and dairy producers rather than focus on the cause of E. coli and its spread, feeding cows grain instead of grass, confining cows in pens where they wade in manure their whole lives right up to slaughter, and the manure lagoons that leak into the water and onto nearby vegetable farms.

Monsanto's gene-altered drought-resistant cornThe chemical companies have yoked farmers with increasingly expensive and ineffective fossil-fuel-based inputs that contribute to global warming. Now they propose another techno-fix: gene-altered drought-tolerant crops. Trouble is, the crops don't do well under non-drought conditions. Monsanto invests $2.6 million daily in its research. Think how many people could be eat healthy food on long-term, sustainable basis if Monsanto and its partner the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation invested $2.6 each day in organic agriculture!

Indian farmers protest Monsanto seed experiments that threaten their farmsOne farmer said, "Monsanto is a criminal corporation known to have sued or sent to jail scores of farmers elsewhere for doing what farmers around the world have done for millennia -- saving their seeds."

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